Provocative subject but ultimately too disjointed, as ideas and insights proliferate without any coherent connection.
As usual from Howe (Famous Questions, 1989; The Deep North, 1988, etc.), a brilliant, often lyrical novel driven by a strong moral imperative in a gritty, surreal setting—but ultimately overwhelmed by a narrative that tries too hard, and ends too easily.
In a tale written to explore moral ambiguities in an often political context—the question of "un-American activities" is a subtext—Howe tells the story of Felicity Dumas. Descended from an ethnic mix of native and immigrant Americans, Felicity grew up in Maine, where she met Temple, who since her teens has served "the function of boss, seducer, never-lover, and owner of the world in which she was condemned to live." It is Temple who rescues Felicity and her daughters, Lee and Matty, from her abusive marriage, then arranges for her to help Tom, an activist lawyer, take care of his dying father. Tom, whose communist father had not only seduced fellow-communist Pedro's mistress but later betrayed him to the government on a false charge, is the apparent representative of virtue, while Temple—a dabbler in drugs, right- wing politics, and the selling of body parts from Mexico—is the Prince of Darkness who's ruined Felicity's life because she'll always be beholden to him—especially when she discovers that Matty needs a liver transplant. Temple is prepared to help for a price: Felicity must cross into Mexico and pick up a cooler of body parts. Meanwhile, Tom, learning of his father's perfidy, travels to California to see the jailed Pedro and also Felicity, whom he meets up with but can't really help (despite his goodness, all he ever did "was listen"). When Felicity refuses to cooperate, Temple makes a startling confession, but Matty dies, and Felicity sets off on a redemptive journey back to Maine—and a slick happy ending.
Provocative subject but ultimately too disjointed, as ideas and insights proliferate without any coherent connection.Pub Date: June 1, 1993
ISBN: 1-55713-100-7
Page Count: 230
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1993
IN THE NEWS
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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